


Hearth

by Elsey8



Category: Persona 5
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Love, Relationship Study, could be read as romantic or queerplatonic tbh, pretty simple idk what to tell you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29233623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsey8/pseuds/Elsey8
Summary: A look into a unique understanding shared between Ann and Futaba.
Relationships: Sakura Futaba/Takamaki Ann
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	Hearth

Ann thinks Futaba is cold. Not emotionally, not all of the time anyway. 

Physically, her hands are always cold and more often than not she’s curled up in her warm room typing away all day. It’s a rather funny contrast to her Palace, where Ann was sure she was going to get heatstroke and die on the spot. 

When Futaba goes out she probably doesn’t dress as warm as she should, simply ending up with other people’s clothing to sustain her. Her favorite steals are Ryuji’s jacket, anything from Yusuke, and whatever Goro throws at her when she starts complaining. 

Usually she ends up with Akira’s coat spread across the both of them regardless of what other layers she scrounged up, tucked against his side. All of them go along with it, dutifully sacrificing their clothes, knowing full well they won’t be getting them back until Futaba gets bored of it. 

And Ann is warm, she runs the warmest out of the whole group. It leads to some very nice moments where Futaba goes to her for warmth. Her jacket isn’t big enough to warrant stealing, at least it wasn’t at first. 

Ann ended up buying jackets a size too big somewhere along the way. 

Futaba’s placement in their group isn’t always clear. She is almost never clear with how she sees any of them. Akira and Goro are like her older brothers, and that’s the most they get for certain. It’s clear that there are some of them she just isn’t as comfortable around, some people she prefers to put herself around. 

Her feelings change daily, and if you ask her on a bad day she’ll say she doesn’t have any feelings at all. Where she’ll still insist she’s not a good person, she’s a burden, she is cold and she is  _ Alibaba.  _

It’s hard to drag her out of her own room on those days, let alone her head. 

Sometimes it’s better to just leave her be until she’s ready to come out on her own again. 

So Ann has learned to just treasure the moments in which Futaba tucks her head under her chin and pushes as close as possible. 

She didn’t sign up for this for consistency of any kind. She’s known, since the beginning, that the Phantom Thieves are a mess. It’s been a while since they’ve used that moniker, but their core hasn’t so much as shifted. 

She wouldn’t trade it for a single thing. 

Besides, there is one thing about Futaba that stays the same. She loves all of them, really. She doesn’t say it every day, but Ann knows that is the one thing she always feels. Even when she actively denies it, Ann can feel the truth behind it. 

Ann thinks Futaba is dangerous like that. 

If they’re sleeping together with blackout curtains and Futaba keeps sleepily pulling her back with carefully executed, “I love you”s, Ann will stay all day dozing with her. 

She can’t help it. 

It’s a good thing that these days don’t happen too often. When they do, Ann has no choice but to stay. It’s worse if Morgana curls up with them, making everything more warm and comfortable. 

Ann would spend the rest of her days like that if Futaba reached for her with those grabby hands. She’s weak, she knows she would give in too easily. 

Futaba does all her work from home, so if she really wanted she would never have to leave her own room. 

Sometimes, Futaba claims that’s exactly what she’s going to do. She doesn’t need anything, anyone, she can just do this on her own from now on. No reason to socialize, no reason to feel anything when she has herself after all. 

And then Akira makes curry and she’s sitting at the table in Ann’s lap because Akira probably invited more people over and they don’t have enough chairs even if they’re in Haru’s oversized dining room. Even she can’t have enough chairs for all of Akira’s friends. 

Ann thinks she could come up with...a lot of reasons to love Futaba. 

The way Futaba wakes up, eyes opening blearily before she cuddles closer and shuts them again. Five more minutes, for an hour. 

The way she eats so fast she nearly makes herself sick. Ann worries sometimes that she’s going to choke one day, or maybe burst. 

The way she focuses, hunched uncomfortably over her laptop as her eyes and fingers move faster than Ann can really comprehend. The way the spell only breaks when she’s done, leaning back with a long stretch and her cracking her bones so loudly Ann worries she’s broken something. 

The way she falls asleep, curling up and clinging and cold but still so warm.

The way she loves, quietly while denying it the whole time. Embarrassed about it. Ann thinks it’s funny how similar she is to Goro that way, and how much they both deny those similarities. 

But really, what better reason to love Futaba than...her being Futaba? 

Everything she does, even the things that make Ann furious, all of it is her. Ann looks at every part, even the ones she doesn’t want to see and the parts Futaba doesn’t really want to show her. The parts that are ugly, the parts that are bad, the parts that are good, and the parts that are beautiful. Each one pieces together into a bigger picture, into Futaba. And Ann promised to always love her, whoever she became. 

And she does. 

Futaba has and hasn’t changed in so much time. She takes steps in so many directions, forward and back and to each side until she’s running circles around the core of herself, shifting to take different shapes depending on the day. 

And Ann just loves her every day. 

There are days she spends sunrise to sunset in a pleasantly dark room with Futaba and just relaxes. Sometimes she thinks she would never relax if not for Futaba. They text Akira for food and otherwise hardly move. 

And she will, every next day. There will be more days she refuses to get up just because Futaba will look up at her as they’re waking and say, “I love you.”

There will probably be days she can’t even look at Futaba because she’s so angry, so hurt. There will be days that aren’t good, and days that are everything. 

All of it will just be...days. Just be time. And in that time, the only constant will be love. 

Ann would never wish for anything different.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, feel free to come talk to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Gillian01430581)


End file.
